I guess since it has officially started filming that it is safe to break away from the DIARY thread and give this one a thread of its own.

Romero is currently in Canada and shooting the new film. Originally people thought it was a sequel to DIARY, but it doesn't not appear to be the case now. As many know, Romero's first DAY OF THE DEAD draft took place on an island, so I wonder if he will work in some stuff from there.

First set report & pics:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38603

According to this Thursday's Variety report the film is still untitled. But "Island Of The Dead" does have a pretty good ring to it, echoing the continual desperate hope of past Romero zombie-flick characters to "find an island... somewhere". I also like that Romero seems to be carrying over his Diary 2 idea that people can agree there's a problem, but will divide and clash over the best practical and moral ways to deal with it.

I still wish there had been a Land road movie sequel, where the remaining Canada-bound gang keeps running into various communities based on increasingly frazzled ways of dealing with the zombie problem. Romero could have had a field day with an episodic concept like that, taking aim at any current societal target he wanted.

There's already an Island of the Dead on the video racks (the Malcolm McDowell thing with flesh-eating flies), so Romero'd probably be better served coming up with something a li'l more distinctive.

Although Diary of the Dead wasn't all that, sans chips.

But hey... he's gotta use Twilight of the Dead at some point, right? Didn't his people lay a cease-n-desist on Fulci to not call Gates of Hell that way back when?

ISLE OF THE DEAD is the most obvious replacement (there's probably one of those out there as well...

(edit) -- duh, totally forgetting the Karloff vyrloka thingie

He could do that zomedy he's been threatening and call it Beach Party of the Dead.

There's always the title BEATING A 'DEAD' HORSE ...

Am I the only one NOT looking forward to a Romero Zombie Movie?
Time to move on, George!

Though if he did a comedy with that title, I WOULD pay to see it.

DEAD TREK!!

After years of hearing about non-zombie Romero films that were all ready to go... only to be cancelled, I don't mind too much. Sure, I'd like to see him tackle other things, but there's finally funding out there for his zombie ideas. Better this than no Romero movie at all (even if I have very mixed feelings about Diary). I'm not one to look a dead gift horse in the mouth.

That being said, the only new zombie flicks I want to even be aware of are either Romero's or the in-development World War Z epic. Beyond that [Dunaway-Crawford] NO MORE ZOMBIE MOVIES...EVER!!! [/Dunaway-Crawford]

If I had my way, I would prefer he did something non-zombie next. He recently said he would love to remake SEASON OF THE WITCH. Of course, it seems the only thing he can get funding for are the zombie flicks.

Going by the draft of World War Z floating around, don't get your hopes up.

The pooch is being screwed.

The last good Romero flick IMO was MONKEY SHINES, which I thought was far superior to LAND OF THE DEAD (haven't seen DIARY OF THE DEAD, but it sounds awful, perhaps because I couldn't stand the film whose conceit it seems to have cribbed, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT).

I'd love to see him try another offbeat horror idea like MONKEY SHINES, instead of fruitlessly going back to the bone-dry zombie well once more too often. He's given us the two best zombie flicks ever made (NIGHT and DAWN, natch), and he can stop now.

I totally agree...except for the comedy part...

Craig, really? I'll admit I didn't think the episodic and wonderfully intense WORLD WAR Z would be an easy adaptation, but it's a rotten screenplay?

I'm reading THE ROAD right now, and boy, is it depressing. Great, but depressing.

Anyway, I see Romero moving ahead with PLAYGROUND OF THE DEAD, CONDO OF THE DEAD, THREE DAYS OF THE DEAD CONDOR, THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF THE DEAD, THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES AND THE DEAD...

Well, it's subjective, of course.

On a technical level I thought it was over-written, dense to being like a hybrid between treatment and screenplay. Lots of the imagery is pretty cliched for folks that have seen more than a few zombie films (the opening scene takes place on an airplane, with the final shot having blood splashing across the inside of a window).

My big issue is that the journalist of the novel has become the overt protagonist. Which is to be expected in the transition from novel to marketable film... but since this is (last I heard) a vehicle for Brad Pitt, all his little political biases shape the direction of the narrative, the dialogue.

See, here the zombie outbreak is all the fault of China, what with their organ harvesting and all. Which I suppose is a topical hook and all, but the script lays it on pretty heavy.

Actually, the dialogue is in itself a big problem... didactic rather than organic, with the emphasis on the telling and not showing. This is the flick that (if filmed as written) will truly deserve the "NPR version of Dawn of the Dead" appellation.

Well, to be fair, the subplot about China and organ harvesting is straight out of the novel. But Brooks spent enough time exploring the weaknesses and corruption of the world today so as not to lay the blame totally on China.

I recently got my copy of the novel back from a friend and I've been re-reading a great deal of it. Although you could never really do the book justice as a film, I could imagine a fairly effective streamlined adaptation. I think I pitched this concept before when I started a World War Z thread on here a while back. Basically, my version would be an episodic multi-character zombie apocalypse cross between Citizen Kane and the HBO AIDS-crisis film And The Band Played On, with the American combat vet character combined with the journalist as a character piecing together the whole history as a way to confront his own demons. But the point would have been, like Kane, to show instead of tell as much as possible.

Anyway, straying a bit off-topic here. I'm guessing this might wind up yet another abandoned Pitt project, when the box-office mojo is once again off the zombie hordes.

True that... to be clearer, I meant that the policies of China (not just the organ bit) get more than a little workout here, to the point of drum-pounding.

But (thinking back on it) what I missed most in the transition was the satirical elements of the novel. They weren't all that subtle themselves, but they made the political points easier to absorb.

W D'A, your proposed approach to WWZ seems really workable. I also think that if the film was to be more conventionally structured, this epic project might have to be two films, or a trilogy. I just wonder - you readers of the book: would Michael Stipe do a cameo?

Tainted Chinese-made pet food killed my last two cats, one quickly and one more slowly - I'm no big fan of little China's criminal-minded "businesses."

Fangoria.com has a set report up and Romero mentions a few interesting things about the film.

PLOT SPOILERS BELOW



First, the film is basically a Western about "the conflicts between two warring rural families (à la the Hatfields and the McCoys), engaged in an escalating battle, with the ever-multiplying hordes of flesheaters akin to the kids caught in the middle."

Second, the film is not a direct sequel to DIARY, but the main character is one of the minor characters from DIARY (the leader of the National Guard renegades). So it is set in the same film world. Interesting.


END SPOILERS

http://www.fangoriaonline.com/gore/home/ne...biewestern.html

It looks like we have a new title, too:

"... OF THE DEAD"

That's right, ellipses and all.

http://www.dreadcentral.com/story/afm-firs...posters-updated

Terrible title. To me, it comes off as some cynical joke, like Romero is admitting that it doesn't matter what he calls his latest churned out zombie cheapie. Which I do not think Romero intends and I do not think is the case at all. Island Of The Dead might have not been particularly inspired, but it worked. How about Tribes Of The Dead if the theme is tribalism?

Terrible photo-shopped junk pretending to be a poster. Looks like it escaped off an early 80s videocassette box for some trashy Italian Romero rip-off. There are legions of artistically-talented fans out there who could deliver classic poster art for Romero... for FREE!

Say... Legions Of The Dead! That has a nice ring to it. Better than a "we can't even think of anything" ellipsis. God, I hope this is all just some temporary promotional hiccup before the real stuff surfaces.

It looks like MADLIBS OF THE DEAD to me.

Y'know... I kind of like it. There's a stark minimalism to it that implies that he's wrapping up the series...

... and the dead win.

Here is the first trailer for it:

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/bdtv/Player.php?id=2523

Hm... unused elements of his Day of the Dead script meets the 70's version of Survivors?

Looks like it might be pretty solid... and I like how he finally gets around to having someone call the zombies Deadheads.

Now it's officially SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

So they passed on the BEATING THE LIVING DEAD HORSE title, eh?

Well, damn... I was sorta diggin' ... of the Dead. Survival of the dead is sorta... um, goofy. They're dead, right?

Actually, I kinda dig it! Depending on who you think the subject is, it's either a forboding statement or a promise for humans to have hope, all while being an absurd contradiction (a tradition going all the way back to the phrase "living dead")

The trailer that was here and then gone is back!

http://fantasticfest.bside.com/2009/films/...ntasticfest2009

Romero and SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD will both be at Fantastic Fest this year. This will be Romero's second FF.

Here is a brief 90-second clip from the film. I'm not quite sure what to make of this:

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/09/tiff-09...of-the-dead.php

A riff on that teaser for the remake of Godzilla?

Variety gave this a mediocre review:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940983...egoryid=31&cs=1

and yet...an all-out positive from HR

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-r...004010561.story

Funny...last time (with DIARY) it was Variety with the thumbs up and HR with the pan.

I loved DIARY OF THE DEAD and am absolutely looking forward to this.

Vincent

ScreenDaily.com:
Survival of the Dead review
http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/venic...5005505.article

Twitch:
George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead review
http://twitchfilm.net/reviews/2009/09/tiff...dead-review.php

So basically, Sheldon, you have a preconceived negative opinion of SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, so you will continue to post link after link to negative reviews for it (while at the same time ignoring positive reviews) so as to back up your precognative negative opinion of the film? Gottcha!

Vincent

Which positive reviews that were online as of 7:04 a.m. ET yesterday did I ignore? There's a positive review on Dread Central, but it was posted on that site just this morning.

Dread Central:
Survival of the Dead review
http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/survival-dead-2009

That Dread Central review? Shoot that metaphor in the head.

Fangoria Review